The Devil's Reprise by Karina Halle Read Free Book Online Page B

you, Sage; you’re the unfortunate star of the show here and if you don’t go on, no one does.”
    He took the other bottle of champagne for himself and went for the door. He opened it and paused. “If it makes you feel any better, Sage, try and think about the girl. But only if you’re in a good place. I like her, Sage. I know you do, too. Don’t let her trip out here be for nothing. See you downstairs in an hour.”
    He closed the door and left. My thoughts wanted to drift to Dawn. I drank the whole bottle and silenced them.
    Dinner was hell. Well, maybe it wasn’t that bad; after all, I’d had my own personal glimpse into Hell. But it took a fuckload of effort to keep my eyes open. Tricky, Jacob, and Angeline went on and on about the shows in Paris and Nice (we had a day to ourselves on the French Riviera, which was good, nice even) and about the musicians I’d meet tomorrow, the guys who would form my touring band. I’d approved them all months ago, but had already forgotten their names or who they sounded like. I wasn’t worried about that anyway; I was worried about myself and how well I’d perform.
    Angeline kept teasing me with her smooth foot under the table, and I went on pretending it wasn’t happening as we dined on escargots and filet mignon in red sauce and things that were made with the highest fat percentage possible. I was lucky my diet had mainly been alcohol up to this point because the French cuisine seemed like murder for anyone who had to stay in shape.
    I don’t know if it was the copious bottles of table wine or the brandy that Jacob ordered for the table after dinner, but pretty soon I was feeling all right. I was flying. It was like the day—and let’s say my life —never even happened and I had no cares, no worries, no fears. No guilt. Between Angeline’s toes working their way up my inner thigh and Tricky passing me a tiny vial of coke, under the table was where everything was happening.
    “I love France,” I muttered as I stood and headed to the washrooms. I went in, took a leak, did a line, and tried not to look at myself in the mirror. I was about to leave, my head swimming and my heart pumping, when the door swung open and Angeline stepped in.
    She swiftly locked the door behind her and put her fingers to her lips.
    “Don’t tell anyone,” she said in that breathy, flirty accent of hers, “but I have quite the crush on you.”
    I cocked a brow and grinned lazily as the drugs settled over me like dust. “I think everyone knows.”
    “They don’t know anything,” she said. “But you’re about to. Do you want to do it here or in your room? Or I could do both. I can do a lot of things…want me to show you?”
    She took a step toward me and started unbuttoning her white silk blouse, her eyes glinting feverishly, a wicked smile on her face. “Unless, of course, you can’t. But I don’t recall Sage Knightly having a girlfriend.”
    My smile struggled. I didn’t. That was true. There was Dawn, of course, Dawn who I’d be seeing tomorrow. There were also scores of other chicks, but I remembered barely any of their names. And I wasn’t even with Dawn. I wanted her here because I wanted her, but now she was coming to Europe on official business. We weren’t together; even if I thought it was something I deserved, we weren’t an item. We…I had no idea what we were.
    And I didn’t know where Dawn stood in all of this, what I meant to her. Because as I stood there in that black-and-white-tiled bathroom, Angeline displaying her creamy white breasts for me, all I did know was that Dawn had left me. She was with me in Redding, she was with me in the aftermath, and then she left. The only other person on the planet who knew exactly what I had gone through, who went to Hell and back with me and lived to tell about it, went her own way, back to her own state and her own life. She never gave me a second glance.
    “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man so disappointed about